Two Protesters Arrested At Pt. Pleasant Pump Site

March 26, 1988|by HAL MARCOVITZ, The Morning Call

While shouting "The pump will not be built . . . the pump will not be built," a hundred demonstrators paraded for two hours in front of the Point Pleasant pumping station yesterday but did little to display the civil disobedience that has marked the project in the past.

Two demonstrators were arrested, but they hardly engaged in the entranceway scuffling with authorities that Bucks County deputy sheriffs have come to expect.

The two protesters, Will Mead of Chalfont and Paul Beiger Sr. of Carversville, were taken into custody after they slipped through the fence well after construction workers had entered the site.

Beiger, in fact, was arrested after he toiled for several minutes to dig out a hay bale which had been stuffed under a gap in the fence. Several deputy sheriffs stationed inside the fence stood by watching as he worked. He then crawled through the gap and was immediately arrested.

Mead found his way through the fence elsewhere on the site and led deputies on a chase around the construction yard until he, too, was taken into custody.

The demonstrators returned to the site on the third day of work since construction resumed Wednesday. Work on the water project has been done off and on for the past five years and was restarted this week after more than five months of delays.

About a half-dozen construction workers entered the site at 7 a.m. They made their way through the picket line which had been set up in front of the gates an hour earlier.

"My heart sincerely says this project is wrong," said protester Burt Shepp of New Hope. "The only people who say this is right is the Department of Environmental Resources, and they are supposed to be protecting our environment."

DER renewed the permits for the project in February, clearing the way for the project to resume. Environmental groups, such as Del-AWARE Unlimited, have claimed that the project will damage the Delaware River.

The water project will withdraw up to 95 million gallons a day from the Delaware River at Point Pleasant. The water will be transferred through a series of pipelines, natural streams and reservoirs to public water companies in Bucks and Montgomery counties as well as to the Philadelphia Electric Co. nuclear power plant in Limerick, where it will be used as a supplementary cooling supply.

"I came here to demonstrate and let them know the people haven't forgotten. We will continue this fight and we won't give up," said Ralph Myers of Doylestown Township. "This has gone on for five or seven years and we just won't quit. Weknow the people are on our side."

Beiger and Mead were taken to the Bucks County Courthouse in Doylestown. They appeared later before President Judge Isaac S. Garb, who ordered them to attend a hearing to determine whether they should be held in contempt of court for violating a court injunction banning protests from the construction site.

Del-AWARE Chairman Richard Myers said he was impressed with the turnout for the demonstration.

"Fighting the pump in every form that is available to us is our greatest strength. We're here because we believe we're right," he said.